Weapon Pixel art

[Agentd00nut]

Hey everyone.  I've been making mods for a game called Cortex Command (http://www.datarealms.com/) For a while, and I just got back into doing it after stopping for a while.  I never liked how my weapons looked so i looked online and found a tutorial and i think it helped but let me know what you guys think.

The game uses 2 frames for a gun, one for when its firing and one for when its not, you usually can't notice but i like to have one with an open bolt and one without.  The idea of the gun is that its a weapon that can shoot artillery shells, one at a time so it's supposed to be kind of a big burly awkward weapon.  The game uses a weird color pallete too so that makes it difficult for me but i do my best.

Not firing

Firing

I tried to make the front of the gun have a point where theres an angle that narrows down to the barrel, the little barrel underneath will eventually have something shoot out of it like  visible gases or something.

Here is the shell that it fires.


The shell needs to be symmetrical because if you turn to the left and shoot, and the shell is drawn so that its narrow on one side (the right) like a real shell, it comes out backwards so thats why its rounded on both ends.

Let me know what you guys think of it.

[Zombiemambo]

Contrast, contrast, contrast! My biggest complaint with almost every piece I see is that people don't use enough contrast. It makes the image hard to read, and your wasting colors. Darken your darks and lighten your lights.

[CrazyMLC]

That doesn't look real, so adding a black outline will not hurt.
also, you overused colors a lot, it has stray pixels everywhere.


who are you on the fanforums?

[#36005A]

That doesn't look real, so adding a black outline will not hurt.

i wasn't aware that guns in real life had black outlines...

[Malor]

That doesn't look real, so adding a black outline will not hurt.

i wasn't aware that guns in real life had black outlines...

I believe he was saying that since this appears to be a non-realistic piece, having black outlines would not look out of place. Anyways, I would definitely recommend removing the dithering, and removing one shade from each color ramp. Also, I would add more contrast between the colors. In a piece as small as this, contrast is not a bad thing.

[TrevoriuS]

Assuming that that centre frame is made of wood, its contrasti s allright. But on the metal parts, indeed, contrast.
Your pixel placements is too random, your cylindrical objects are too straight shaded. You get a cylindrical look by adding a thin dark edge at the brighter side as well.

[Agentd00nut]

Alright I'll try fixing it up later today, thanks for the advice everyone.

[#36005A]

That doesn't look real, so adding a black outline will not hurt.

i wasn't aware that guns in real life had black outlines...

I believe he was saying that since this appears to be a non-realistic piece, having black outlines would not look out of place. Anyways, I would definitely recommend removing the dithering, and removing one shade from each color ramp. Also, I would add more contrast between the colors. In a piece as small as this, contrast is not a bad thing.

Ah, I understand, thanks for clearing that up.
As for crits: Definitely increase contrast and give highlights to the metal parts so they stand out, and on the left, the shape doesn't seem very defined - unless that was intentional, I'd recommend working on the shape a bit, and don't forget to increase contrast Also, on the "firing" one, I'd suggest making the changed part a bit darker so that the change itself is more apparent.